Product category:
Antennas and Feeders
News Release from: Sarantel | Subject: GeoHelix
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 16 October 2002
GPS antenna slides into CompactFlash
designs
In the last four months four companies have designed the Sarantel ultra-small GeoHelix GPS antenna into CompactFlash GPS modules in current production.
Antenna specialist Sarantel says in the last four months four companies have designed its ultra-small GeoHelix GPS (global positioning system) antenna into CF (CompactFlash) GPS modules in current production Developers in the USA and the Far East have recognised the advantages of Sarantel's antennas for their CF modules, which target the rapidly growing GPS add-on market providing geographical location capability to PDAs and laptop PCs
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 23 Apr 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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Sarantel has acheived a significant design win for its advanced GeoHelix GPS (global positioning system) antenna which is to feature in the new GPS addon for the Ericsson T60c cellphone.
CompactFlash is becoming a dominant format in this market segment.
Applications include personal navigation and leisure products.
In the past the performance of handheld and in-vehicle GPS applications has varied greatly because GPS signals are so weak.
The unusual characteristics of Sarantel's PowerHelix technology allowing unimpeded operation close to people, buildings and other signals provides a considerable advantage to CompactFlash designers, improving both satellite acquisition time and overall system accuracy.
Tod Urquhart, Sarantel's sales director said, "It makes very little difference which GPS chipset these developers are using, their pre-production tests simply gave better results with our antennas.
It's great to see their reaction as the developments progress".
Active or passive versions of the GeoHelix antenna are being used by Fortuna of Taiwan which uses a SiRFStar ll GPS chipset and Sysonchip in Korea which uses SyChip's chipset.
In the USA, Enfora has developed a golf product for Skyhawke Technologies using an Ashtech GPS solution, and another company is the fourth compact flash GPS developer to specified Sarantel's antenna this year.
All products will see volume production during 2002.
Urquhart concluded, "GPS antenna designs have effectively stood still for 18 years, it is only when the technology is being pushed to the limit in people's pockets and cars that everything in the system, including the antenna, gets such a thorough review".
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